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Forum:Two Fronts for those who have read it
At the Judge's suggestion: I finished it up yesterday. For me, I think the book probably benefitted from lowered expectations, rather like W&E. I was expecting "bad", and got "surprisingly entertaining." It isn't great, and many of the same problems still persist, but there are several strengths. First, things seem to be happening much more quickly at the macro level. It begins in the closing weeks of 1941, and ends in the Spring of 1943. We seem to be in the sprint to the finish. Second, there are subtle but clear changes taking place. The big one is that the U.S. declares the a-bomb project a boondoggle and stops it. Japan, on the other hand, manages to release anthrax and the plague on Hawaii. The Nazis are facing an increasingly unhappy German population. Leftism seems to be more relevant in Western Europe than it was in OTL. In the UK, Cartland suggests Labour might not be so bad. By itself, that's not such a big deal, given OTL, but then we learn that Léon Blum has regained political momentum in France, and of course, the Republicans still have a large chunk of Spain. On the other hand, the Soviet characters seem to have no faith in Stalin, and with the way things are going in the Pacific, it's quite plausible to think the GOP will get back into power come 1944. Ironically, these subtle changes have kind of left me wanting a Cold War series follow up. Third, HT doesn't seem to be relying much on parallelism. I could be wrong, as I'm not a WWI scholar (and that seems to be the obvious model here), but there have been no Stalingrads, no Overlords, no Bulges, etc so common to HT's other WW''II'' work. Fourth, while there is a fair amount of wheel-spinning with several characters, I find that I like enough of them at this point that I was ok with mostly. Even Lemp had interesting moments. The weaknesses we've discussed about as often as soldiers in the Second Great War discussed tobacco, but I'll do it again: HT's preference for common man/women characters as his POVs has done this series no favors, especially in combination with his preference for a set number of third person limited POVs. In the past, he's included some characters who at least had entry into the halls of government or into the upper echelons of the military. There isn't a single character like that in this series. No Molotovs, no Atvars, no Flora Blackfords. In the first half of the series, that wasn't necessarily a problem, given the nature of the POD. And even now, its not a universal problem. The U.S., the USSR, Japan, the minor Axis powers are all more or less identical to OTL, so we can easily intuit their goals and decision making processes. But the Spanish Republic is still a going concern in 1943. So is the government of Daladier in France. While Germany is still run by the Nazis, Hitler's position sure seems more precarious than in OTL, and there have been a couple of dramatic coup attempts that we know little about. Most egregious (IMHO), Britain has been run by the military since 1941 (so roughly two years), and we know absolutely nothing about that government's inner workings. HT's use of everyman characters, who by definition aren't in the know, means the reader isn't in the know, and that's just frustrating. And it would be so easy to fix. For example: while Peggy usually does somewhat interest things, in this volume, there were a couple of scenes where she literally took Herb to the train station then went home and listened to the radio. A couple of those could easily have been Ronald Cartland doing some government business or other, or some mid-level bureaucrat in Madrid or Berlin. And Peggy wouldn't have to die. HT would just need to loosen up these imposed POV limits. Another consequence is that we get things like "oh, by the way, Montgomery was commanding North Africa. Sorry, I should have said that on page 2 instead of page 364 of a 404 page book. Especially since he's also dead now." So, in summation--I liked it better than CdE, primarily because I wasn't so thoroughly disappointed as I was in CdE. It's not the best volume of the series (that's still TBS), but it's better than the worst (HW). It stoked my interest in volume 6, but I'll be glad when this series ends, and I hope HT will put WWII aside for a while. Maybe series writing in general. TR (talk) 15:41, August 1, 2013 (UTC) :Still waiting on the library to call, but of course I was going to read this anyway. Based on the info shared your reaction sounds valid and I expect it will match mine fairly closely. I too have drastically lower expectations for this one than I had for the last one, which I'm sure makes a lot of difference. Turtle Fan (talk) 18:04, August 3, 2013 (UTC) ::Same here waiting for local library to contact me. God, it's at least a month since I put a hold. :::They wouldn't have started lending it a month ago. The release date was three weeks ago as of Tuesday. I was second in line so I assumed I'd hear from them last Tuesday or shortly thereafter, assuming a two-week loan on new releases. Apparently I was wrong. Turtle Fan (talk) 01:27, August 12, 2013 (UTC) About the series over-all, I can't believe I'm saying this of HT, it wasn't entertaining or something you want to get excited about...just fills up space on days when you have nothing much to do. Zhukov15 (talk) 14:37, August 11, 2013 (UTC) :Oh it's not the only Turtledove series that's true of, though opinion will vary somewhat from one person to the next as to which. I can't for the life of me think of anything to make Supervolcano appealing, but I know most of you enjoy it. Turtle Fan (talk) 01:27, August 12, 2013 (UTC) :hey, I certainly don't enjoy Supervolcano...it basically a long list of people bitching about their life and how horrible it's become and a weird racial preoccupation. Zhukov15 (talk) 02:00, August 12, 2013 (UTC) Just finished it, and the library doesn't need it back till Tuesday, so over the long weekend I'll go through and write some more articles. It was an okay book, not bad, not great. Very repetitious, and absurdly, some of tihe things being repeated contradict each other: We keep hearing how Germany's far beyond fucked because they're in a two front war, AND we keep hearing how half-assed the second front is. I feel even more confident saying that HT's vision for the SCW is a permanent stalemate rather than a Red victory; still no closer to figuring out why that story needs to be told at all, but I don't mind it anymore. As for the main plot, I have no idea where it's going. The combat scenes are unbelievably similar; since I first picked up a Turtledove book in 1998, I've probably read the same scene with minor variations over 1000 times. The little character bits, like Stas's sudden insight into chess or Vaclav's letter from his father, really made the book for me. All the POVs grew on me (with the obvious ecception of Baatz; he must be the worst replacement since Sidroc succeeded Leofsig.) Even Lemp had his charms. When he was making his run against tbe Ark Royal, I found myself rooting for him instead of the good guys. For a second I paused and wondered why, then realized it was because something was finally happening with him. An unexpected development which earned forgiveness for a multitude of sins. I agree that the key to enjoying the book was low expectations. All I sought from it was a way to kill some free time over the course of a week or so, and that's what I got. Glad I didn't spend any money on it, too; I think library loans are the future of this series for me. Turtle Fan (talk) 19:54, August 31, 2013 (UTC) :::I just finished Two Fronts finally. Just like you guys I expected little and got...something. Lemp got lively, caught the Gestapo's eye and might add "leading a revolt" to his resume in the near future. ::::Eh, that's been a cocktease for so long, I've lost interest. Maybe if we ever actually learned anything about these developments, instead of "Huh, looks like some shit just went down. Oh well, back to work." Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::Lemp being the leader of a revolt can only surprise me at this stage, for the reasons TF cited. Walsh seemed poised for a similar position, and that went where that went. TR (talk) 15:50, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::I'm curious if Jezek and the Czechs (sounds like a good band name) will go back to La Belle France and fight ze Germans? ::::They had their chance and didn't take it. God knows why; Spain is so fucking pointless for them. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::I think with Chaim out of combat, Jezek will be more relevant at the front. I hope. TR (talk) 15:50, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::::Yes, he may be more relevant to the story for that reason, but this part of the story isn't relevant to him. Why is he still dicking around in Spain when returning to France comes much closer to letting him strike a blow for his own people? It's not because he has an affinity for the Republic or for the country in general; he's made that clear. I guess maybe he doesn't trust France not to switch sides yet again? Turtle Fan (talk) 17:04, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::::His general lack of disapproval when Halevy shredded his orders to return to France suggests that no, he does not trust France, and while he doesn't care much about the Republic, they have been pretty good to him. TR (talk) 17:46, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::::::I agree with your assessment that he doesn't trust France, and why would he? But Spain really is a waste of time for him. Then again, sometimes in life one thing leads to another, you end up doing something you never would have expected, and you stay because of inertia. I guess that's where he is. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:42, September 4, 2013 (UTC) :::Or will they move the revolution into France, as Demange's Communist platoon members suggest? ::::Those assholes. Hard-core communists always thought a revolution was right around the corner. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::I think something more leftist will come to France. HT made such a point of dropping Blum's name. TR (talk) 15:50, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::::The name-drop didn't strike me as being all that pointed, more like just one of those things HT occasionally does to add flavor. Turtle Fan (talk) 17:04, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::::::I could be reading too much into it, I suppose. Just seemed odd. TR (talk) 17:46, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::There seems to be a suggestion of a re-switch according to Steinbrenner. ::::I took that as wishful thinking. And by the way, am I the only one who finds the name Steinbrenner distracting? I keep thinking he's going to fire Billy Martin or something. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::The war in Belgium is rather passe, minus the wholesale slaughter of Franco-British tanks by the Tigers. ::::Why are Tigers in Belgium at all? The IVs would have the same effect against British armor, and even the IIIs would hold their own. The T-34s have a numerical advantage in the East, and Tigers are ThirCo's only chance of negating that advantage; IVs may be able to fight a like number of T-34s to a standstill, but that won't help given the numbers. Put all the Tigers where they're desperately needed. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::This sort of decision making is consistent with what Hitler was doing in the second half of the war in OTL. TR (talk) 15:56, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::::Perhaps, but that Western Front was a great deal more in earnest than this one. The US Army put him at a huge numerical disadvantage there, too, so having one tank which could handle several American tanks was smart. Turtle Fan (talk) 17:04, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::::I was actually referring various decisions wherein Hitler's megalomania trumped anything like military rationality. Here, Hitler is pissed because the Brits and the French bailed on the big switch, and he's going to MAKE THEM PAY! Or at the very least, use SUPERWEAPONS! to knock them out of the war, and then return to beating on the Russians. TR (talk) 17:46, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::::::Oh. Yes, that would fit if that side of his personality were coming out. I wish he'd make another direct appearance somewhere so we can get a hint as to what's going on inside his head. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:42, September 4, 2013 (UTC) :::On the Eastern Front, I was glad Kuchkov avoided the penal battalions. I think HT has some interesting things in store for him. ::::Agreed. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::Same here. TR (talk) 15:50, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::Dernen died rather ingloriously. ::::Yeah. Even by HT's standards that was meaningless. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::Especially after his build-up as a sniper of talent. Then again, lots of talented people die meaningless deaths. TR (talk) 15:50, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::::From other authors I would insist that the death of a major character have significance to the story, if not to the major events depicted therein. I've come to realize by now that HT just doesn't do it that way, and that being a POV whom we've followed for five years doesn't necessarily make someone a major character. I wouldn't mind so much if he hadn't replaced Dernen with the odious Baatz. Turtle Fan (talk) 17:04, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::::HT has wisely let some introspection into Baatz. Not much, but enough that being around him may not be completely intolerable. TR (talk) 17:46, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::::::Yeah, I guess HT did as much as he could to make the jerk sympathetic after five years of making him despicable. As you say, it's not much; but keeping Baatz so hateful all those years (unlike Demange, who started off as a jerkass but grew on us after a while till we didn't mind his assuming Harcourt's role) really should have disqualified him as a POV. Sidroc at least was uniquely positioned to give us the pro-Algarvian side of things in Grelz, and I believe HT was building him up as That Guy You Love To Hate so that his torturous death would make us cheer. But Baatz is just an asshat. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:42, September 4, 2013 (UTC) :::Theo, Adi and the rest had to bail out of a panzer just as they did in '39 - wonder if that's foreshadowing anything? ::::I would think there's an excellent chance the crew will be split up. That would seem to have more serious implications for Adi than for Theo. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::I got a bit tired of Mouradian as social commentary on the USSR. As an Armenian, he'd have some historical affinity for the Russians because they saved a lot of Armenians during the Turkish attrocities. HT makes him some sort of moral equivalent of a Sikh in the British Army or a Moroccan in the French. The dynamic with Russia and Armenia is a bit different than some sort of simple colonialism. On the other hand maybe he equates Bolsheviks with Russians. ::::The genocide is probably within his living memory (which now that I think of it should have come up at some point). But he's been contending with Russian ethnocentrism for a while now. It's bound to have an effect. At any rate, I'd rather he give some of his scenes over to such observations if the alternative is scene after scene of "Let's go bomb another ammo dump." Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::Some time ago, I jokingly suggested the idea of Mouradian kamikazing into the ground with Stalin aboard. I don't think this will actually happen, but Mouradian seems capable of killing Stalin at this point if he has the chance, which is interesting. TR (talk) 15:50, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::::Well he might be capable of doing so, yes, but how likely is he to get that chance? I really don't see where it could come from. Stalin didn't travel to the front, and the front's not going to travel to Stalin this time. Turtle Fan (talk) 17:04, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::::Not at all. Like I said, I found the idea amusing, but I can't picture Stalin going down in this series. TR (talk) 17:46, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::Where's the nationalist powers rising in Eastern Europe? ::::You know, I'd completely forgotten about that. Maybe it was in an earlier draft? Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::Ukraine seems like it's doing something or other. Add that to the list of covercopy slip ups. TR (talk) 15:50, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::::Ukrainian partisans are tooling around, not sure there's anything there that qualifies. Maybe the leaders of the more significant nationalist movement were killed when Jake Featherston "retaliated with his newest weapon, the atomic bomb" in TG? Turtle Fan (talk) 17:04, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::Not a peep out of the Poles yet one imagines they'd be at the Smolensk front - they were there in the 1620s after all. The Ukrainian nationalists are just huffing and puffing. Kuchkov gets them to retreat for a second time with just a threat of artillery. I wonder if the Nazis get pushed too far into Poland if they'll make a deal with the Banderists to buy some space and time. ::::I'd have liked to hear from them. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::I think the end of the war will pivot on Poland. They're the only half-way worthwhile ally Germany has, and the main thing keeping Russia out of Germany. TR (talk) 15:50, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::::Yes, which is why I found them conspicuous by their absence. Turtle Fan (talk) 17:04, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::The Romanians are folding fast and everyone knows it. ::::Whee. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::Mussolini seems to be focusing on Africa. I'm surprised he wouldn't try to snatch Nice from France. ::::To date he's been very cautious. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::I like that at least someone is playing it smarter than in OTL, even if it is Il Duce. TR (talk) 15:50, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::Spain might end up partitioned in a peace deal like Korea in OTL. ::::The result may be similar, but it wouldn't come about as Korea did. If it happens it will be through the great powers' indifference. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::: Either that or the Republic wins because the Nationalists don't have anything to throw at them any more, and simply fade into the scenery. TR (talk) 15:50, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::::I'm still thinking perpetual stalemate. Even Weinberg is thinking that these days. Turtle Fan (talk) 17:04, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::Back to the characters. I'll lose interest in Sarah unless she takes out Hitler if/when he shows up in Munster to prove the Reich is still holding together. ::::She's in good position to cover an anti-Nazi rising for us, which of course doesn't mean she will. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::I'll settle for that. TR (talk) 15:50, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::I'm holding out a glimmer of hope that Herb staying in Nevada might maybe perhaps hopefully still mean a nuclear test at Nellis Air Force Base. Maybe he has more time to re-think his recommendation. Not holding my breath though. ::::Oh I'm coming to enjoy the prospect of a nukes-free war. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::Same here. HT will almost certainly be going to another trope: liberal use of chemical weapons in WWII. No way does the US not respond to Japan's anthrax in Honolulu with mustard gas at least. TR (talk) 15:50, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::::Yeah. Turtle Fan (talk) 17:04, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::Peggy needs to do something fast other than smoke and sip scotch. ::::I hope she dies of cancer. It would serve her right for reminding us that she's a smoker every ten seconds. There was a lot of that generally in this book, so much so I half-thought it might be titled Settling Accounts: Two Fronts. But she was the worst offender (even more so than Demange!) She spent more time ruminating on her vile habit than she did playing her role in the story--a lot more. I'm guessing that now that all the mileage has been squeezed out of her behind-the-lines adventures, HT's out of ideas for her at the moment, but is keeping her around in case that changes. But there's got to be a better way to keep her engine idling than feeding her a mid-sized plantation's worth of tobacco every chapter. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::Since it's early 1943, I think she'll probably give us insight into the 1944 elections. But that's going to be while yet. TR (talk) 15:50, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::::Sure, but does that justify saying "I love to smoke!" over and over again until we finally get there? Turtle Fan (talk) 17:04, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::::Not in my opinion, but I'm expecting that HT will think it does. TR (talk) 17:46, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::::::Yes, he certainly seems to. However, I'm honestly hard-pressed to think of a way to make her more annoying. Even if we accept the highly dubious assumption that the only way to keep her on ice is to have her do one thing over and over, everything I can think of that she could be doing is an improvement over "rationalize her idiotic addiction." Her political speeches were not too exciting--though there's no reason they couldn't be ritzed up by sending her to, say, Manhattan, rather than all those dreary little coal towns--but aside from being somewhat relevant to the story, they were more interesting than . . . what she's doing. If she were spiraling downward into alcoholism or, shall we say, opium addiction, there'd be the possibility of some emotional investment in her struggle (or lack thereof). If she were listening to soap operas on the radio all day, we could follow a story-within-the-story, which, while it sounds lame, would at least have some novelty to it, at least for a few scenes. If she were really getting into quilting or playing solitaire, we'd be bored to tears, but I think even that is less objectionable than a smoking obsession, especially after SA. And if she'd started sleeping around while Herb was away, she'd be showing us instead of telling us that her marriage was deteriorating, so the divorce papers wouldn't have come out of nowhere. If she absolutely had to smoke on top of her promiscuity, smoking fetish porn is a fairly big business. Running a website on clips4sale or whatever is obviously anachronistic, but she could hire a photographer to take pictures of her smoking in the nude, and either submit them to a dirty magazine or publish one herself. Peggy the Porn Star is an image that is making me giggle to myself as I think about it--which is certainly more emotion than I felt reading her actual scenes. ::::::::And by the way, her electoral coverage has been something short of stellar to date. 1940 and 1942 were both "People don't understand how important it is to take a hard line against Hitler; if FDR keeps pushing that hard line, will they vote Republican? . . . No, guess not. He's got another comfortable majority." It's not that hard to have her following things more closely than that, and the rewards for such labor on HT's part would be significant. ::::::::And of course, as you say, if HT thinks he'll need her in the future but doesn't have anything for her to do at the moment, he should reassign some of her scenes to temporary POVs in undercovered areas. He won't, of course, but he should. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:42, September 4, 2013 (UTC) :::Fujita is our only Japanese POV and he got interesting too. Maybe he gets shot down over Hawaii. ::::He's okay. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::Will the war end in '44? Will there be a separate peace among the belligerents? Again, the book left me with more questions than answers. ::::That's as it should be at this point in the series. The real failure comes when we don't care enough to ask the questions. On the other hand, if next year is the last book, there was no sense of setting up a move toward resolution. Even The Grapple managed not to get its wang caught in that particular zipper. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::I'll finish out the series but I hope HT lays off WW2 for the foreseeable future. ::::Amen. (What I want to see is a series of novellas, perhaps using the OA format, set in the Lizards' history.) Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::: Then again, Supervolcano is no joy-read either. JudgeFisher (talk) 04:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::Still haven't touched it. In a few months I'll give some of the rereleased Videssos books a go, but I find I can't stomach large doses of HT in a short period like I used to. Turtle Fan (talk) 06:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::It's frustrating for me because, IMO, while HT's everyman approach works better in that plot than it does in his AH, there isn't much diversity in the POVs. Most of them are in the L.A. area, where it's cold and rainy all the time, and gas is a pain to get, and everyone rides the bus. Cry me a river. One character was in a FEMA camp, but got out by mid-book. Another is stranded the the frozen wasteland that is Maine, but we don't see him much, a shame since that's shaping up to be interesting. TR (talk) 15:50, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::I'm going only based on the info up on this Wiki, which isn't necessarily safe to do; for instance, TWTPE might be somewhat misrepresented if someone who'd never read it had to base his opinion on what we've written about it. But the impression I get is that it's a whole lot of nothing going on. People just got used to living conditions being somewhat grimmer than they had been and are getting on with their lives. Hardly the thrilling disaster story offered by, for instance, Birmo's Without Warning (even if the sequels to that one didn't live up to those thrills). It might as well be a perfectly ordinary novel about life in the UK in the mid-to-late 20th century, or in Serbia or Croatia after the Yugoslav Wars ended. Turtle Fan (talk) 17:04, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::::You're not wrong in your assessment. People go about their lives to the best of their ability. While that's true of disasters generally, focusing on that angle, as opposed to people in the blast zone, for example, doesn't make things terribly compelling. Really, HT should have made it an AH. He'd have lost the theoretical urgency of the near future setting, but at least there'd be something distinctive in the AH. TR (talk) 17:46, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::::Hmm, I hadn't thought of pushing the supervolcano eruption back into the past, but . . . It's a good idea. A really good idea. We'd live in a very different world if the volcano had erupted in 1970, or in 1942, or 1916. And pushing it back into the nineteenth or eighteenth centuries also opens new possibilities. You could choose a date almost at random and have a good story--provided, of course, the emphasis of the story were on events of historical significance, rather than the struggle to keep going. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:46, September 4, 2013 (UTC) Other Ah suggestions for Zhukov ::Do any of you actually find any AH reading material any more? Having run out of HT books/stories to read, I would love to know a good AH or SF story. Can somebody recommend me one? Zhukov15 (talk) 16:40, September 2, 2013 (UTC) :::I'm a big fan of John Birmingham's Axis of Time trilogy. It wrapped up in 2007 (minus a sequel novella I've not yet gotten around to) so you'll be spared the multi-year waits between volumes that plagued those of us who read them as they were released. Check out SM Stirling (I adored The Sky People and In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, AH by way of an Edgar Rice Burroughs tribute). Check out Eric Flint; TR runs that wiki too. If you'd like to get back to the genre's roots, the first AH novel intended for mass consumption in the modern era is still in print, and is a real treat at that: L Sprague de Camp's 1939 Lest Darkness Fall. For military sci fi that isn't strictly AH but isn't far from it (parallel universe), I've been slowly meandering through Taylor Anderson's Destroyermen series. Turtle Fan (talk) 17:26, September 2, 2013 (UTC) ::::::Climb the Wind by Pamela Sargent is one that I really enjoyed. POD is right after the Civil War, the Native American tribes check the expansion into the West. Some other cool things too, but I won't give it away for you. Can't ever go wrong with Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. The Axis win WW II, and there is an alternate history book within the book about an Allied victory in WW II, and more than meets the eye. The Proteus Operation ''by James P. Hogan. A bit of time travel slash alt hist but fun read. ''The Years of Rice and Salt ''by Kim Stanley Robinson. Black Plague wipes out white Europe, leaving China and Islam as the dominant powers. ''Roma Eterna ''by Robert Silverberg. Roman Empire survives. A great short story in similar vein but predates ''Guns of the South is Quarks at Appomatox ''by Charles Harness. JudgeFisher (talk) 04:43, September 3, 2013 (UTC) ::::::My next AH is the ''Kirov ''series by John Schettler. A mix of time travel and AH, but it seemed promising. I will report back on it. JudgeFisher (talk) 04:54, September 3, 2013 (UTC) :::::::Thanks for your suggestions. The ''Kirov series seems a lot like AoT on a smaller scale and more Russian. Zhukov15 (talk) 23:34, September 10, 2013 (UTC) :::::::::That's my understanding of it based on the Judge's description. It strikes me that, if you don't know Russian stuff really well, that will be a tough read. Turtle Fan (talk) 14:52, September 11, 2013 (UTC) ::::::::::Well, it might be informative about Russian stuff that I never knew about. Anyway, I am reading The Years of Rice and Salt and so far it is a good piece of alternate/how people live in another timeline history. But the Buddhist concepts puts me off. Otherwise, I like the story. :::::::::::I found YoRaS started off interestingly as we just started to poke around in the new world, and became less so as it went on. The world was filling in, but the story never really went anywhere. I found the reincarnation stuff an interesting thought experiment and narrative device, but it was executed unevenly and ended, or rather abruptly stopped, on an even less satisfying note than the main plot. For such an ambitious work, I was amazed by how forgettable it was for me. I leant someone my copy years and years ago, never got it back, and can't say I miss it. Turtle Fan (talk) 02:08, September 20, 2013 (UTC) ::::::::::Wow. In the story, the ATL version of WW1 and WW2 is one 40-year-old conflict that saw four generations of soldiers and weapons.... Zhukov15 (talk) 00:25, September 20, 2013 (UTC) :::::::::::I thought it was closer to 70. And of course after the war ended things life sucked hard for longer still. I was already struggling to enjoy the book before that point, and the unrelenting grimness of the final quarter of the story certainly didn't help.Turtle Fan (talk) 02:08, September 20, 2013 (UTC)